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The AADvance Safety Controller

The AADvance® controller is specifically designed for functional safety and critical control applications; it gives a flexible solution for smaller scale requirements. The system can also be used for safety implemented functions as well as applications that are not related to safety but are nevertheless critical to a business process. This AADvance controller offers the ability to make a cost-effective system to a customer's specification for any of the following applications:

Emergency shutdown system
• Fire and gas installation protection system
• Critical process control
• Burner management
• Boiler and furnace control
• Distributed process monitoring and control

An AADvance controller is particularly useful for emergency shut down and fire and gas detection protection applications as it offers a system solution with integrated and distributed fault tolerance. It is designed and validated to international standards and is certified by independent certifying bodies for
functional safety control installations and UL for use in hazardous environments. This chapter introduces the primary components that can be used to assemble an AADvance controller. A controller is built from a range of compact plug-in modules (see illustration) that are straightforward to assemble into a system. A system can have just one or more controllers, a combination of I/O modules, power sources, communications networks and computers. It can operate as a stand-alone system or as a distributed node of a larger control system.

A Key benefit of the AADvance system is its flexibility. All of the configurations are readily achieved by combining modules and assemblies without using special cables or interface units. System architectures are user configurable and can be changed without major system modifications. Processor and I/O
redundancy is configurable so you can make a decision between fail safe and fault tolerant solutions. There is no change to the complexity of operations or programming that the controller can handle if you add redundant capacity to create a fault tolerant solution.

They can be mounted onto DIN rails in a cabinet or directly mounted onto a wall in a control room. Forced air cooling or special environmental control equipment is not necessary. However, important consideration must be given to the choice of cabinet or when the controller is installed in a hazardous environment.

Specific guidelines are given in this user documentation to help you choose an enclosure that will make sure that the system operates to its full capability and reliability and that it also complies with the ATEX and UL certification requirements for use in hazardous environments. The Ethernet and serial ports are configurable for a number of protocols in both simplex and redundant configurations for connection to other AADvance controllers or external third party equipment. Communications internally between the processors and I/O modules uses a proprietary communications protocol over a custom wired harness. The AADvance system supports transport layer communication protocols such as TCP and UDP for MODBUS, CIP, SNCP, Telnet and SNTP services.

A secure network communications protocol (SNCP), developed by Rockwell Automation for the AADvance system, permits distributed control and safety using new or existing network infrastructure while ensuring the security and integrity of the data. Individual sensors and actuators can connect to a local controller, minimizing the lengths of dedicated field cabling. There is no need for a large central equipment room; rather, the complete distributed system can be administered from one or more computers placed at convenient locations.